In its continuing efforts to improve its next generation
operating system, Microsoft has released another interim build of
Windows Vista to testers. Build 5456 is a rather large jump from Windows Vista Beta 2 (Build 5384.4)
and offers a number of improvements which are sure to be welcomed by users. NeoSmart Blog reports:

Some of the new features include a revamped Aero/DWM
subsystem, and a completely overhauled and significantly less obtrusive UAP for
all those that couldn’t stand the previous one. From what we have been told by
Microsoft, the Time Zone bug that plagued all most all previous builds of
Windows Vista has been fixed and works great now, and quite a few fixes in the
Regional Settings and IME are now implemented. And for the first time since
Windows 3.0 Microsoft has finally announced that new mouse cursors will be made
available for Windows - something they promised to do in XP with “Watercolors”
but failed to deliver for internal reasons!

Of all of the improvements made to this build, the less
intrusive User Access Protection (UAP) has to be on the biggest pluses. Vista's
UAP scheme has been
catching a lot of flak and Microsoft has seen it fit to gradually make the
system less and less obnoxious.

Vista beta testers can download the new build immediately
from the Windows Connect website.
The rest of you folks will just have to wait until Microsoft releases another
public build.

In other Vista news comes word that Microsoft has decided to
drop its plans to offer Windows Future Storage (WinFS) as a future update to
the operating system -- WinFS Beta 2 has been also cancelled. WinFS was the
name for the new file system that was supposed to debut with the shipping
version of Windows Vista. Over the course of Vista's long gestation period,
WinFS was dropped from the feature count then later brought back to life when
it was announced that the file system would be available
at a later date as a system upgrade for Vista.

For example, no longer would documents
need to be stored in My Documents or images in My Pictures; instead, Windows would
simply display the files associated with a particular request on demand. In
addition, WinFS could store structured data such as contacts, calendars and
more.

Of course, there are
other aspects of the WinFS vision that we are continuing to incubate – areas
not quite as mature as the work we are now targeting for Katmai and
ADO.NET. Since WinFS is no longer being delivered as a standalone
software component, people will wonder what that means with respect to the
Windows platform. Just as Vista pushed forward on many aspects of the
search and organize themes of the Longhorn WinFS effort, Windows will continue
to adopt work as it's ready. We will continue working the innovations,
and as things mature they will find their way into the right product experiences
– Windows and otherwise. Having so much ready for SQL Server and ADO.NET
is a big impact on the platform, and more will come.